Sunday Snapshot: Friendly Football

football - unlike in the U.S., in most of the world football implies soccer so this has become part of our vocabulary as well ;-)

Yesterday Becca and Josh participated in a Friendly Football Match where several International Schools competed against one another. The day was hosted by Dulwich, another school here in Suzhou. Eton House (our kids' school) sent 4 teams: 3 boys and a girls team. 

The girls team posing after one of their games. And just in case you are wondering, the girls are each wearing an E and H for, you guessed it, Eton House.

Josh moves in to steal the ball. Can you see his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth?

Closing in on the goal.

And celebrating after the goal. Yeah, buddy!

Getting ready to pass off to his teammate.

Back to the girls playing in the final for their division. The girls fought hard, but ended up with second overall.

These 2 girls from the opposing team were small and tough. As we saw them closing in on Becca, we held our breath. But our girlie stopped them and prevented the goal.

Josh has really gotten a lot tougher this last year. Check out the elbow. A year ago, he would have just yielded. So should I rejoice that he is throwing an elbow? I'm going with a yes on that one.

I love, love the determination on his face here.

 The girls getting their 2nd place metals. Josh was disappointed because even though his team did really well, they didn't place in the top 2. So therefore didn't get a metal. And Becca who would have been fine either way got a metal. Let's just say there were tears involved and leave it at that. I thought this was supposed to be a friendly football tournament.

Josh with his team. Can you see him still battling the tears?

But considering that the match ended after 1, I think that hunger played a factor. Food helped put him on the right track.

Well, food and a really BIG piece of chocolate cake. There are few things that chocolate cake can't cure.

He is worried that his cake is going to fall over. The happy cake feelings were almost ruined by cake stress. But don't worry, the happiness of chocolate cake prevailed in the end.

Chocolate cake happiness all around.

We had such a great day. Even with Josh's disappointment, the kids will talk about this day for weeks to come.

The Princess Party

If you know our third, you know that she is a girlie-girl through and through. So naturally she wanted a princess party for her 6th birthday. She invited several girls from her class and some of the kids that live in our neighborhood.


The invites. I had someone from Andy's work help me translate these into Chinese. I am sure that she was humored by me.

I wrote each of the girls' names on their crowns in glitter glue. While I am able to write some Chinese characters, glitter gluing in Chinese was definitely taking it to the next level. 

Once all the girls had arrived, we first looked for treasure hidden about our downstairs. The treasures contained jewel rings and jewels for the girls to use on their crowns.

The birthday girl showing off her bling. I mean, her pretty jewel rings. But c'mon, total bling don't you think?

We are getting ready to play pin the crown on the princess. One of the challenges of the party was explaining everything in both English and Chinese. And yes at one point one of the little Chinese girls from Tori's class corrected something that I said. You know, just to keep me humble.

Then we made beautiful jewelry bracelets. Tori with one of her good friends 印琬菁 (pronounced yin wan jing).

A good time was had by all the little princesses.

The cake. Not sure if you can tell from the picture, but this has 4 layers. Since I can only bake 2 at a time in my oven, I was baking for most of afternoon! Tori kept telling everyone that her cake had 4 floors. This would be a moment where she knew what it was called in Chinese and directly  translated it to English. Just what is that girl's native language?

Such joy. But this year, we opted not to have the fire-flower candle. I was concerned that with the towers it might not work. Catching the cake on fire would not have been a good thing.

Such determination! But as she leaned closer to blow out the candles, I got worried and decided to intervene. . .

to hold the flowing hair back from the flame.

Tori posing with our 阿姨 (ayi), our house help. They have such a special relationship. In fact when we were back in the US, someone asked her what she missed from China. Her response: tofu and my ayi.

Can't you just see how much they enjoy each other?

We had asked each of the girls to dress as a princess or in their most beautiful dress. Tori informed us that she wanted to dress as a Chinese princess. I think she makes a beautiful one, don't you?

Happy Birthday, Sweet T!

Blog drought

For some reason over this last month, I have not felt at all inspired to write. Much has happened. And right now as a family we are pondering some big things. But I have just not felt ready to share these things with the world at large. So hence the quietness. I think that I have just needed to time to ponder and journal the old-fashion way (in a pretty little notebook). But I think that I am ready to break my self-induced silence.

So, hello again to all of you. While I have no illusions about catching up on all that has gone on in our lives, I will share the highlights. Let the marathon blogging begin.

Kids & Technology

There are so many ways that are kids are much more tech savvy than we once were. I did not even have a computer until I went to college. And I am sure that none of our kids can imagine their lives without our computer. But living an ocean away from family, our kids are also Skype kiddos. We Skype our families regularly. And as their friends have moved away, they also keep in touch with them via Skype. I can't describe why it humors me, but this shot makes me smile.

Talking with some of their friends that are currently in France.

Hopefully, it makes you smile as well. ;-)

Photo dump

This is going to be random. But keep tracking with me people. . .

Starting out in the States. I just had to share a picture I finally found when I unearthed my camera cord during the great unpacking process.

Debating how all these bags are going to fit. And this was only our checked luggage. Needless to say, it didn't all fit in the back. There were bags everywhere.

Then through the week-long battle with jet lag. We were victorious in the end, but it got ugly before it got better.

In our family when our kids are older, it will not be tub pictures that we will threaten to show their dates or potential spouse. Oh no, it will be the photos of them in the midst of jet lag. Cause, baby, there are some terrific ones! Josh is mid-sentence pleading with me to lay on the couch. Mind you, it was only 6PM. Look at those poor, tired eyes. Jet lag is a monster. This my friends is the reason we come back only once a year!
**sorry for the iffy quality, took this one with my phone.**

After only a week back we went with some friends to 莫干山 Moganshan, an area in some (smaller) mountains about a 3 hour drive from Suzhou. It was absolutely gorgeous. At times, we had to stop and wonder if we were in China. I love seeing more trees (or bamboo as the case may be) than people in a given day. Which is not usually the case in my life.

We stumbled across this mountain stream-fed reservoir. Would highly recommend Moganshan -- it was absolutely beautiful.

After off-roading on some not-really-drivable-roads with tons of passengers, we have new respect for the BUICK van. This is not just your city van. 

Quintessential China experience -- Tori and her friend are watching the 奶奶 "grandma" at the guest house where we stayed kill the chicken that will be our dinner. And for most of this they were up close and personal. T later described it for me: "She cut on the neck and it bled everywhere. Then she put it in hot water and pulled out all the feathers!"
What a life we lead.

The return

This is going to be a post with no pictures. Because when traveling solo with 3 kids, the last thing on my mind is taking pictures. Granted, I did think of it. But the camera wasn't handy. My phone was available, but it was too dark for it to get a decent picture. So I will have to use my words to describe it.

But what can be said about a journey that includes a 14-hour plane ride? There were inevitable delays. Which of course prompted Becca to have some travel stress. Our plane going into Detroit was delayed almost 40 minutes and made our connection for our Detroit-Shanghai flight a little tighter. Even though we had plenty of time, my girl worried about it the entire plane ride to Detroit. But then that flight ended up being delayed so it wouldn't have mattered. At one point during her worryfest, I gave her the worse-case scenario. We miss our connecting flight. Since it the airlines fault, they would put us on the plane the next day going to Shanghai and it would work out. I think sometimes she needs to hear the worse case to realize that even that is doable.

And then our long flight? Was long. And had no individual TVs. Be patient with me because I am going to rant for a minute. I just don't understand how the airlines can get away with showing movies that are inappropriate for children but then not giving any other option. This alone is the reason that I like the individual TVs so much. Because every single movie that was shown on the big screen was PG and most of them were PG-13. Thankfully, none were R. But even a PG-13, has more violence and inappropriate sexual content that I don't want my 5 year-old to see. I had to ask the kids to look away at several points. Because I know that if they were to see what was shown then it would bother them and possibly give them nightmares. And how can one of the longest flights you can take not have individual TVs? On our return to the US, one of our flights was 9.5 hours and we not only had the TVs, but they were on demand. Meaning we could pause and skip ahead in movies. But then this flight that was almost 5 hours longer really had no option for my kids. Just. So. Frustrating. Alright, rant over.

A friend emailed once we were back to ask how the flight went. I quickly replied, "OK." And then later remembered that one of my kids got sick twice almost at the end. But since that is a usual occurrence for that particular kiddo, I guess I just thought of it as no big and nothing out of the ordinary.

We are in the midst of battling the evil jet lag monster. But I have hopes that we will be victorious in the next day or two. Our first morning back Tori woke up at 2:30 AM and was up for the day. She had climbed into bed with us, but didn't really sleep anymore that night. During the afternoon as they are lagging we head for the pool and then after dinner we attempt to keep them awake with movies with doses of tickling as needed.

This time around either the flight (with its pressures changes) or jet lag or really the evil combination of the two gave me a two-day migraine. I was totally out for the count. I am so thankful that Andy was already on China-time and didn't have his own jet lag to deal with because he has been crucial in helping and taking care of the kids. I love that man. And just for the record, we are SO GLAD to be back with Andy. 26 days apart is a long time.

We now have a week to get back into the routine before school starts. Can I just say. . . it is great to be home!

Sunday Snapshot: everything but the kitchen sink. . .

seriously. That is what I feel like I have purchased and am getting ready to pack. We are in serious countdown mode: t-minus 5 days until we board the plane. And you know what? I am ready to go home.

But in answer to what so many people ask. . . what do you buy to take back to China? Each year, it is a little bit different. The one thing that is a constant is that I ALWAYS buy toothpaste. And lots of it. Just as a funny aside, the cashier rarely makes a comment, but just imagine someone buying a year's supply of toothpaste. At one time. Plus a ton of medicines. Yet again a year's supply. And I am surprised that I don't get more comments. I mean, I would notice and think it a little strange that someone was buying 15 tubes of toothpaste. Not to mention the 5 things of deodorant and all the medicines. It honestly took me two years to figure out exactly how much toothpaste we use in a year.

I feel like this could be an I Spy: The Travel Version
I spy 10 tubes of toothpaste, something you want with you when it rains, 4 things that will make you sneeze, and the remedy for a headache.

The great organizing begins. Notice that the duffel bags are still quite empty. Unfortunately, I have just a little more shopping to do. [sigh] I am really, really tired of shopping.

Surprising, we don't buy much food to take back with us. This is a change from our first couple of years. I would buy mostly food (coffee, chocolate, baking supplies . . . the list seemed endless). But now, I buy some things, but have really either been able to find what I need or have just learned to do without. As evidenced by the pictures above, I buy a lot of spices. After getting off skype with Andy, I realized more things I need to buy. This is NOT my favorite kind of shopping. But I think that I am almost done.

Just so you don't think all the packing is organized and tame. This is what it looks like way too often. Can I tell you how tired I am of living out of a suitcase?

The kids and I went out for ice cream tonight. Yes, we are still adhering to our daily ice cream ritual. 5 more days of ice cream left! While we were out, I asked them how they were feeling about going back to China. This is often a mixed bag. Their home is China. They have majority of their friends in China. All of their things are in China. Daddy is already in China. BUT, the U.S. is still their home. They still have friends here that they are sad to say goodbye to. Their grandparents and (some) of their cousins are here and they are definitely NOT ready to say goodbye to them. And this brings about a wealth of emotion. Essentially, they are kids who have 2 homes and are always somewhat torn between them. I really believe though that it is important to bring this up ahead of time and talk through what they are thinking and feeling. So we sat there with our ice cream and thought about all of the things that we were excited to return home to. Their lists were long. Including everything from their friends to their stuff and of course, Daddy. Josh is even excited to eat some of his favorite Chinese foods (namely, lamb kabobs and rabbit legs). But there will be many tears over the next week as we say goodbye to all that we love here.